Mating Game Is A Waiting Game

From Live Science:

How long do you wait before having sex with a new sweetie? Three dates? 10?

A new study suggests that both males and females benefit from extended courtships in which mating is delayed: By holding out, females can more accurately screen for potential providers, while waiting males can prove they're suitable mates.

The study, published this month in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and conducted by researchers at University College London, University of Warwick, and London School of Economics and Political Science, invoked game theory to examine the strategies used by potential partners of various species, including humans; the game ended when either the male or female quit, or when the female accepted the male as a mating partner. Scientists used a mathematical model dependent upon evolutionarily stable equilibrium behaviors, in which both males and females are doing as well as possible against the other's actions.

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Revealed: Why Beautiful Women Are More Likely To Be Unfaithful... It's The Marilyn Hormone

Marilyn Monroe's hourglass figure was caused by the same hormone
that triggered her affairs according to scientists

From The Daily Mail:

With her drop-dead curves, Marilyn Monroe's voluptuous hourglass figure has long been regarded as the absolute essence of what it means to be a sexy woman.

But the female hormone that made the film star so desirable was the key behind her inability to hold down a steady relationship, according to scientists.

Those with the most oestradiol, a form of oestrogen, are usually more physically attractive and find it easier to snare a man.

But they are also less satisfied with their current lovers - and therefore more likely to cheat, according to the findings published in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters.

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What Science Says About Enlightened Sex By Sally Law, Special to LiveScience

Women who practiced the Eastern techniques of mindfulness and yoga reported improvements in levels of arousal and desire, as well as better orgasms. Image credit: Dreamstime

From Live Science:

Another year, another batch of resolutions: eat right, exercise more, pay bills on time etc. All good in theory, but potentially dull in practice.

In 2009, then, resolve to have better sex. According to a recent review article in the Dec. 3 issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, sexually unsatisfied women who practiced the Eastern techniques of mindfulness and yoga reported improvements in levels of arousal and desire, as well as better orgasms. In addition, yoga has been found to effectively treat premature ejaculation in men.

Eastern practices have been touted as sexually beneficial for years — as the article states, the techniques have "their origin in the Kama Sutra of the fourth to sixth centuries."

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Bionic 'Sex Chip' That Stimulates Pleasure Centre In Brain Developed By Scientists

The chip could stimulate the orbitofrontal cortex, which is associated with
the pleasure felt when eating and having sex

From The Daily Mail:

Scientists are developing an electronic 'sex chip' that works by stimulating the pleasure centres in the brain.

The technology, which creates tiny shocks deep in the brain, has already been used in America to treat Parkinson's disease.

Now researchers are focusing on the orbitofrontal cortex, which is associated with feelings of pleasure caused by eating and sex.

A research survey conducted by Morten Kringelbach, a fellow at Oxford University, found the orbitofrontal cortex could be a 'new stimulation target' to help people with anhedonia - an inability to experience pleasure from such activities.

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Why Do Men Buy Sex?

Photo: iStockphoto

From Scientific Magazine:

* In the U.S., police officers detained about 78,000 people in 2007 for prostitution-related crimes, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Only about 10 percent of these arrests are of the sex patrons, who almost exclusively are men.
* A considerable proportion of men worldwide buy sex from female prostitutes, with most estimates of lifetime prevalence ranging from 7 to 39 percent, depending on the country and study. Many experts argue that it is a male appetite—and not the choices of prostitutes—that fundamentally drives the sex trade.
* Men’s motives for buying sex are hotly contested among researchers. Some believe the practice serves as a salve for common psychological afflictions, such as an unfulfilled craving for sex or romance. Others, meanwhile, paint a dimmer portrait of johns, believing they are driven by chauvinistic motives, such as a desire to dominate and control women.

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Origin of Sex Pinned Down

From Live Science:

We all came from hermaphrodites, organisms with both male and female reproductive organs. And though the origin traces back more than 100 million years, biologists have scratched their heads over how and why the separate male and female sexes evolved.

Now, research on wild strawberry plants is providing evidence for such a transition and the emergence of sex, at least in plants. And the results, which are detailed in the December issue of the journal Heredity, likely apply to animals like us, the researchers say.

The study showed that two genes located at different spots on a chromosome can cast strawberry offspring as a single sex, a hermaphrodite or a neuter (neither male nor female, and essentially sterile). The researchers suspect the two genes could be responsible for one of the earliest stages of the transition from asexual to sexual beings.

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Love, Sex And The Changing Landscape Of Infidelity

From The New York Times:

If you cheated on your spouse, would you admit it to a researcher?

That question is one of the biggest challenges in the scientific study of marriage, and it helps explain why different studies produce different estimates of infidelity rates in the United States.

Surveys conducted in person are likely to underestimate the real rate of adultery, because people are reluctant to admit such behavior not just to their spouses but to anyone.

In a study published last summer in The Journal of Family Psychology, for example, researchers from the University of Colorado and Texas A&M surveyed 4,884 married women, using face-to-face interviews and anonymous computer questionnaires. In the interviews, only 1 percent of women said they had been unfaithful to their husbands in the past year; on the computer questionnaire, more than 6 percent did.

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Testosterone Levels 'Affect Sexual Attraction'

From The Independent:

Women with high levels of testosterone are more attracted to masculine-looking men like James Bond actor Daniel Craig, scientists said today.

Meanwhile men, whose levels of the hormone are increased, are more attracted to feminine faces like Hollywood actress Natalie Portman.

Researchers at Aberdeen University Face Research Laboratory carried out the first study into the role testosterone plays in attraction between the sexes.

During the study, men and women completed four test sessions each conducted a week apart. In each session volunteers provided a saliva sample which was used to measure testosterone levels.

Researchers found that when asked to choose between different types of faces in each session, the subjects' attitudes changed depending on their testosterone level.

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